The devil is in the details "La Petite Mort"

Can you count the levels in this painting? The artist Coop graciously let me visit his studio to view his newest painting "La Petite Mort" that he is working on. I know him because he married one of my best friends from college and is a truly fascinating person. The man paid his dues to get the recognition he does for his work. Pretty amazing stuff to see in person.

Back to the levels of this painting. There is the base with the profile of two females, blue with deep red lips in a pucker. Then there is the red line skeleton grim reaper painting. Then there is a skull done in a pink halftone layered over it. The last layer he was working on when I left after lunch was the placement of a stencil of the skeleton reaper but that is getting ahead of myself.

The halftone is a recent direction in is painting in the last year or so. He indulged me on the process of getting the half tone done. For starters he took a photo of a chrome skull. Then he cropped out what he needed. Then he reversed it to a negative image, added in the halftone filter and adjusted angle and size of the dots. The halftone image was then printed on regular paper. Then that was put into a opaque projector and projected onto the canvas with the other layers already in place. Then came the tedious of painting in each and every dot.

Each dot size varied and took a difference type of stroke to get the size right. The smaller dots made it possible to go quickly down each row. Larger dots needed broader and more precise sizing. The larger ones also needed many more brush refills with each in the series. The detail photo below of the lower left corner gives you an idea of the size and variety. Imagine doing enough dots to create a skull in half tone on 2, side by side 6X6 foot panels!

There we go a short visit and a lot of appreciation for the work behind this latest big piece from Coop. I have more on my flicker set "Coop's Studio". Coop as more on his flickr "La Petite Mort" that follow the progress of the painting. He also blogged about it on "Positive Ape Index". And of course my pal Ruth has some on her flickr page as well.

Wish you could smell it but spring is here

Did you ever notice that some smells can transport you back to another time and place so vividly you'd swear you were right there right now? For me the lilac does just that. The scent transports me back to our back yard in Iron River, Michigan and 1st grade all over again. When they bloomed we knew that spring was solidly in place and only days before school was out for the summer. I still remember just climbing into the tree and being surrounded by the purpley-pinks and that heavenly scent. Nice to have those journey's every now and then.

Simple photo was post processed from RAW through Virtual Photographer to bring about the more saturated warn look of an old Kodachrome film. Nice to be able to emulate those old silver based films and bring that emotional feel to the digital realm.

manet, monet and jack...jump back into the impressionists garden

I could not help myself a play on words referencing pop culture. Of the painters the impressionists have always struck a cord deep within. It was the use of line and color to not present a literal interpretation of a subject, rather left the interpretation to your own background and biases. In this case local auto parts store "Pep Boys" has their founders "Manny, Moe and Jack", I have the impressionists Manet, Monet and Jack Beck.

Georgia O'Keefe did some incredible paintings exploiting the erotic, sensual sometimes outright sexual nature of the shapes and forms in nature. In particular she did many close-ups of flowers in particular that exploited the references to the female anatomy. (More on her in the Wiki).

The Iris in detail the way the petals flow and the brilliant beard and the anther take on some very erotic overtones with a little stretch of the imagination.

This image, the Iris Beard started as a photo wherein the raw file was opened, nominal color correction was done then converted to jpeg in CS2. The jpeg image was then opened in Paintshop Pro, disassembled, run through a couple of filters so the colors would maintain their saturation when printed on wet watercolor paper. Yes, wet watercolor paper, not running wet, but damp and dabbed off. This method of printing allows the fine details to blur into the paper and render a much softer final image. One that gives you an impression of sexuality and eroticism in nature.

A detail of the center to give you an idea of the image prior to hitting the wet paper and causing it to blur.

Anyway, you get the idea of what this is all about. The final print once it is matted will be on display at the Paint n Play 2 Gallery in Old Towne Monrovia.

I have Iris!

Just in time for Easter one of the Iris stalks opened up. These are a favorite of mine that naturalize nicely in a So Cal garden. Very fuss free and only need to be divide every 3-4 years to keep them really producing well. The blossoms on this old variety are huge and the buds even have a metallic sheen to them before they unfold their deep blue petals allowing the fuzzy yellow stamen to be seen peeking out at the center.

More pics of the flowers in my garden will be found on my Flickr Floral Set. Most everything in there is from my garden. You get to see the pics, I get to smell them and relish the sweet scents.

The English Roses are starting to bloom

Today is about 6th day of gorgeous spring weather here in So Ca. Today it made it to 90 so things in the garden are really budding up big time getting ready for the first big flush of color which will happen any day now. The first of the English Roses are now in bloom.

Wenlock is an English Rose introduced in 1984, very easy to grow and I found out, very easy to propagate. This one is a new plant that started when a cane on the original had something fall on it holding it in contact with the ground. I didn't notice and when I was giving a clean up in fall I spotted that it had taken root. I severed the main cane the following spring then transplanted this rose to a new spot. Very heavy old rose scent makes it a big plus in the garden. Given the space to spread this one will eventually be 5-6 fee wide and a good 6-7 feet tall!

Don't be rununculus...its SPRING baby!

Spring is literally only days away here in So Cal. The winter flowering stuff (which the rest of you in the rust belt don't see until May in your area if you are lucky) are just about done blooming. What is coming up now is our Spring flowers. Being So Cal it is going to be big, flashy and extremely colorful after all the rain and cold we had in Jan/Feb. The hills around LA, the deserts and the mountains are bright green and things are starting to bloom.

My gardens are the same. The first of the Giant Tecolote Ranunculus are blooming right now. They are the most tempermental bulbs I have ever dealt with. For reasons I don't understand I had killed so many of these easy to grow and naturalize flowers it is not funny. About 3 years ago I bought the bulbs for this batch on clearance at Costco and they finally took. Go figure, same spot as the others were that died. I like the way they look, just getting them to go is a killer. With luck....

The rest of my gardens are full of buds just waiting to explode into color. I can't wait.

You never know where my meanders will take me

Yup the badge gives you a great big hint. Through my pictures first on Flickr then following links to me on Metroblogging.la Arcadia PD Sergeant Tom Le Veque spotted me and offered me a ride along and tour of the APD headquarters. What? I could not pass that offer up and grabbed it. Satisfied a lot of curiousity. Never rode in a police car, never spent time with an officer doing his job. You get the idea a whole lot of new experiences. The complete article I did was titled "frazgo goes for a ride, Car 64 where are you...".

What I can tell you is that an officers job is a lot of travel between calls. During those calls I got to hang out and just take pictures. I did some in HDR and others were just straight night shooting. What you see here is the end result of the purposefully shot for HDR.

I shot these with a wide angle lens, somewhere around 20mm on the EOS20d. I bracketed and shot them +/- 2 stops and used Photomatix for the HDR file generation. The images were then post processed in Virtual Photographer.

The straight up night scene had to have quite a bit of color correction done to get it closer to reality. Damn mercury vapor lights are so orange it really skews things to far out of line. I balanced to keep it on the warm side and did dial in some contrast to get better dark in the shadows. I went for the lonely look without the total despair of letting the tones go very blue and cold.

Spring has arrived in the Mojave!

The lead photo is simply a teaser from this weekends visit to the Mojave Desert around Palm Springs and Palm Desert. I shot a ton of landscapes with the intent of giving them post processing through Photomatix for HDR file generation.

This year wound up being a "normal" winter in terms of local rainfall so the wild flowers are going to be very abundant. Already the desert floor around Palm Springs is bursting in color. Enjoy the few random shots I got done of the wild flowers.

I hope to make it up to the Poppy Preserve near Lancaster in the high desert this week as the poppies are supposed to be as lush as they were in Spring of 05. Getting up to the Calico Ghost Town for more of the high desert wild flowers around there is on the agenda as well. It will all depend getting the spare time to pull it all off.

Its Been a Veddy Busy Couple of Weeks As this lead image may tell you I've been busy in the garden. The Myer Lemons have started ripening and they do it en mass. I have over 100 lemons that need to be used up and shared in my 'hood. A batch of lemon bars is done, from the Barefoot Contessa recipes. Another couple of dozen will go into the manufacture of some limoncello with my old college friend Rutz when she comes over next week. Other than that it has been cleaning and feeding time in the garden waiting for the first flush of new growth and the spring blooms.

The other great news is that the Monrovia Association of Fine Artists has named me the "Featured Artist" for this years show in October. Pretty cool, but that means someone else is going to have to do most of the blogging for that event as yours truly can't really put a whole lot of self serving blogs, now can he?

Enjoy Sea Lavender, a purple Daisy and Winter Jasamine that is currently blooming in my gardens.

One of those good news, bad news weeks

The bad news is that I didn't win the Saatchi's Viewer Choice but that's OK. I have one more shot this round and it will go up in the next few days. Chances are...your guess is as good as mine on how I will fare. I did get invited back to submit for the next round of viewers choice in March and again September so I can't be that bad. In the mean time I'll just be busy, shooting meandering down the paths of greatest curiosity. It is what I do best.

The good news, is actually some pretty interesting stuff. The local PIO guy tried to make a big deal about me not being "media" or "press" a couple of weeks ago. No biggy, not like I claim to be some great writer, I do photo remember? Regardless, it backfired on him and oddly some of the bigger media picked up on the story and ran with it. The upshot is that real PIO guys and some corporations saw the article and contacted me offering me "Press Passes" and "Media Passes" as well as invitations to their events.

The first such event I got invited to one GM held Tuesday night called "Chevy Rocks the Future". It was an interesting event, LA area kids won passes in with their parents. Learned about what Chevy is doing to be the lead for the domestic makes in terms of alternative, clean burning fuels.

It was held at the Disney Lot in Burbank and was packed with a lot of the Disney TV actors, some from ABC to promote environmental issues at a kids level and what they can do. A no pressure night, a lot of fun. Then it ended with the Jonas Brothers giving a 2 hour concert.

Interesting for me was being in a press line up with some 50 or so other media members and their entourage. Then the actors were taken down the line and we got our photo ops and asked questions. I did mostly photo. I got to shoot some interesting people, hear some interesting stuff. The shooting was the best. I even got a couple to add to my HDR people moving series.

Enjoy the two pics from the event. They were shot bracketed +/- two stops. The files were then run through Photomatix HDR file generation and tonemapping programs. The final image was processed in CS2 and the virtual photographer plug in to give it a bit more illustrative look and feel.

Vote for me if you like it!

I wrote about it a while back, but here goes. The Saatchi in London is running a Viewers Choice contest where they invite a few select artists to submit work for judging by their viewers. The winning piece when it is all said and done get's hung in a new gallery and a cash prize. The cash is nice, but the big deal for me at least on the old CV is having a piece at the Saatchi.

The piece in this round is "Lincolns Last Stand". It was shot bracketed with the intention of using HDR to capture the full range of lighting and detail yet bring about a surreal view bordering on commentary.

An auto show is a very strange event to see on a press pass (yes, the gabacho got one through his writing on blogging.la). After all the hype of a new model roll out the crowd dwindles, an odd pressman about with the car on center stage. All forlorn and not unlike a bride stood up at the alter. The interesting bit is that the MKS is what may well be Lincolns last attempt to be a player in the luxury car market before being downgraded to entry level luxury. My editorial bit, could be wrong....

The images were shot hand held and bracketed 2 stops +/- from average metering. The RAW files were post processed into an HDR file with Photomatix Pro. The same program was used for the tonemapping. After that the final image was processed with Virtual Photographer to further enhance the real/surreal qualities of an auto show.

If you like it vote for it HERE 2/11 -17/08.

Welcome to Spring!

Yesterday it was 84, today we made it to 90. I'll take it. My cousin in Minneapolis let me know it is 15 and snowy cold with -15 expected. Anyone care to guess why I stay in So Cal? I like the idea of spring in early February, not when the calender says it should happen, and certainly not May like it is in the snow belt states. I like this way much better.

I am just about done with all my winter gardening chores. After some 5 weeks of steady cold (this past January was the coldest in 30 years here) with a lot of rain storms it finally got warm again. Some of the early spring bloomers have popped up and are making their first show of things to come towards the end of March. Paper Whites are blooming, some Geraniums followed suit. The bougainvillea on the fence are all back in full color. The first blossoms on the lemon tree are showing up. (Never mind I have over 200 lemons just ripening for harvest in the next few weeks).

Enjoy the stroll through my garden. More to come as we make the final sprint to full fledged spring and everything is in its first flush of color.

Some HDR and a quick apology...





It has been a busy couple of weeks. Mostly because I don't know limits or moderation. What that means is I have spent the last 2 weeks pretty solidly in the garden doing the big rose pruning so they go dormant for a few months and get a chance to rest before the spring growing starts. The limits and moderation are directly related to the roses this time. All 50 of them that needed to be pruned.

Yesterday it was out doing some shooting between breaks at a basketball game. So Cal was in the final stages of a pretty wet and windy storm yesterday. I was rewarded when I would go out between games to shoot and watch the sky. Of course dramatic skies like the old Dutch Masters is something I like to do with my photography so yesterday was a perfect match.

I am continuing my exploration of movement with HDR file generation from raw images. I like the results and as I mentioned before, they have a very abstract way of giving the impression of movement that when added to a Basketball game you get some nifty results.

Enjoy the Storm series and "Ball in play"

A Little January Stroll

Friday was the start of a warming trend here in So Cal, and for someone who grew up in the Snowbelt (or rust belt depending on your frame of mind) anything over freezing in early January is nice. To have 74 at 3PM is an outright treat.

Yesterday I went for another meander in Old Town Monrovia, some to soak in the warm day, a little checking in with some of the merchants and friends to eventually end at Paint N Play Art Studio and Gallery. The latter to help them re-merchandise the gallery after the Holidays. The ladies way of thanking me was to give me an entire wall to build a shrine to me.

The little meander about was too good to be true. The mix of late fall and outdated Holiday decorations with the warm weather was just a bit too unreal. As I walked about and shot I kept in mind I wanted to move out of the literal photo realm and more towards the over colored richly saturated surreal world of a comic book or old time postcard illustration.

To achieve that as always I used Photomatix HDR generation and Tonemapping tools. The final images were given some color correction work with CS2 with their final post processing done with Virtual Photographer. Enjoy my meander from the parking lot to the party room at PnP in that altered state realm of the postcard.

Catching up on the sorting and processing.

In early November I meandered about Duarte and hit the discount strip mall, you know the kind where the 99cent store is the anchor complemented by the resale shop, antique/junque store and if you are lucky beauty supply store. I spotted these gems in the dirty window and decided to work with them a bit.

Kind of forlorn were the odd bits with color on them surrounded by some old glass with the early morning sun blasting the window. I shot with HDR processing in mind knowing I could keep the deep shadow detail as well as the highlights in check. Added bonus is that it seems to cut through glare, not in an all inclusive "polarizing filter" way as it does leave some modeling highlights from the bright street to the side.

Enjoy these bits, done more real than surreal. For the techie in you...shot RAW, bracketed +/-2 stops, then an HDR file generated with Photomatix Pro. Then tonemapped with that program. Final image washing (gimme a better term if you have one) done with Virtual Photographer for an old time Kodachrome style of saturation and warmth.

Last chance to shoot before it rains?


I can't help it...but a little pun: "Los Angeles Rocks"?
Quick post, I actually wrote more for blogging.la HERE earlier today. No need to be duplicating efforts. Short is that it's about to storm, I hope as we are so dry around here we need it. Actually am a bit selfish about it too, I miss the river and the quiet other than ducks and water softly flowing.

Surreality Check...get back to work
The holidays are over and I'm finally getting some free time and get back to working through what I shot the last few months. In early November I walked through Duarte meandering about and just shooting. Interesting community, very old and busily going about reinventing itself. Among the oddities is they used ficus trees, sculpted to all look the same instead of the traditional LA Icon...the Palm to line the main boulevards.

I was out shooting with HDR post processing in mind. The goal...old timey postcard looks and a little of the "predictors" where humans are moving about.

The bracketed photo's were post processed to start with using Photomatix Pro to do the HDR generation from the RAW files then tonemapped. From there I did the final clean up with CS2 and Virtual Photographer.

Enjoy "Old Chevy Life Support" and "Bug Found on Road Alive".

Vote for me dang nabbit...if you like it that is

So here we are I made it through to another round of the Viewers Show Down being held at the Saatchi in London. If you like it vote for me. The link to vote HERE

The piece is titled "Monrovia Rail Road Station". Shot bracketed, post processed with Photomatix PRO for HDR generation and tonemapping, then it is given the final image clean up with Virtual Photographer.